Unlike nanowires including inorganic materials, polymer nanowires have high flexibility and are optically transparent. Due to those properties, the polymer nanowires are expected to be used as nanodevices such as a sensor, a light-emitting element, an optical switching element, an electronic device, a memory, a thermoelectric conversion device, a micromachine, a friction device, and a drive mechanism. However, there are few studies and developed applications thereof, because the polymer nanowires themselves are not easily produced.
One of the most typical methods for producing the polymer nanowires includes using, as a template, a porous alumina substrate having a plurality of pores in submicron-level, pouring melted polymer materials into those pores, and after solidifying the polymer materials, melting an alumina material to precipitate a polymer nanowire.
With this method, a large amount of polymer nanowires can be produced. However, a diameter of the produced nanowires is limited to about 300 nm at thinnest. Accordingly, it is difficult to apply the nanowires to nanodevices which require a thin nanowire having a diameter of several tens of nanometers or less, and have been expected to have a quantum effect.
Moreover, since this method requires processing to etch the template by an etching process and to extract the polymer nanowire, there have been problems such as a restriction of the polymer materials to be used and the fact that the nanowire can be easily damaged.
To solve these problems, the present inventors have discovered a phenomenon of forming an additive-free polymer nanowire by pulsed laser irradiation (Non-Patent Literature 1), and have devised a polymer nanowire based thereon and a method for producing the same (Patent Literature 1).
Patent Literature 1: JP 2010-076044 A
Non-Patent Literature 1: Masahiro Goto, Akira Kasahara, Masahiro Tosa, “Synthesis of Polymer Nanowires by Pulsed Laser Irradiation,” Appl Phys. Express.